the door behind him, but he stooped and peered through the keyhole, as he always did.
There was his mother, her leg, the rest of her, looking so much paler, smoother, and larger than she did with her clothes on. The shower was running and she was bending over the tub, using the knives and heavier tools. Sherman knew that when she was finished with the knives, cleaver, and handsaw, she'd turn off the shower before using the power saw. Water and electricity were a dangerous mix, she'd warned him. Setting a good example.
She never once glanced toward the keyhole, but he was sure she knew he was watching.
It was the power saw's lilting whine that he could never forget.
When she was finished, Sherman's mother called for him to come back into the bathroom. He waited a few seconds, so they could both pretend he'd been in his bedroom, then he opened the bathroom door, knowing what he'd see.
There was his mother, fully dressed. Everything in the bathroom was meticulously scrubbed. All the fluids from Mr. Marks had been washed down the drain to the septic tank. His pale, clean parts were neatly stacked in the tub, his torso, thighs, calves, arms, then his head. His sparse gray hair was wet and matted, but his face wore a peaceful expression, as if he might be dreaming of his childhood.
The black plastic trash bags were folded in the tiny closet with the towels. Sherman's mother got them out, separated plastic, then snapped a bag in the air to open it out. Sherman helped her to stuff the pieces of Mr. Marks into the bags, arms and head in one, two bags for thighs and calves, one for the torso. The bag with the head in it was always surprisingly heavy, so Sherman carried that one. Always the gentleman, or he'd be scolded.
He and his mother lugged the bags out to the cedar-plank back porch that faced the deep swamp. The alligators were conditioned to being fed from there, everything from fish heads to...everything. They'd be waiting in the darkness, all of them, hungry and expectant; as if they recognized the sounds and knew what they meant. Maybe the whine of the power saw.
Sherman and his mother removed one by one the pieces of Mr. Marks and tossed them to the alligators beyond the porch rail. Some of the pieces the gators dragged back into the depths of the swamp. Some they ate right there. One of the big gators always made primitive, guttural noises along with the crunching of bone. That was another sound Sherman would never forget. A sound that was older than the human race, and might be in the collective memory and needed only reminding.
It wasn't until years later that Sherman understood what it was all about. The elderly boarders would disappear from the isolated shack on the edge of the swamp and be missed by no one. Before renting them a room, Sherman's mother always made sure they had no family. Their Social Security checks would continue to arrive, and be endorsed by Sherman's mother. One of the few useful skills her con man husband had taught her, before leaving her so she could toil alone with child and poverty, was forgery.
She made the most of it, and wasted little time.
Tomorrow she'd place another classified ad in the papers under Rooms for Rent. She knew there'd be plenty of replies. Florida was full of pensioners, lonely and poor and closing fast on the end of life, people who had no family and needed a final place to stay before being claimed by death or the dreaded retirement homes.
There! Dessert.
There was a final grunting and stirring and rippling of water in the moonlight, a parting splash in the darkness beneath the moss-draped trees.
Sherman's mother leaned down and with his help began folding the now-empty plastic bags.
They were the thick kind that could be washed out and used again. Over and over.
Fifteen minutes later Sherman was back in his bed, listening to the night sounds outside his window. A loon cried off in the distance. Closer by, there was the rustling of something moving